There's a narrow and a broader way of interpreting the spirit of the act, just as there is a narrow and a broader way of interpreting what colours what. My points will be that the names are one thing, but once they're in the system, or there are tracking systems or profiling, it's all part of the same thing. It is grey if sometimes the people are dishonest and not willing to talk about it inside.
I was talking about this very sensitive immigration case. The reason the amber lighting system is not a genuine...[Inaudible]...in information system disclosure is that it sees things to be diverted, diced, and dissected. Invariably these systems lead to classifying access users and targeting some that are more troublesome or adept users. For instance, in this one I was classified as media, and I could match up to my access request.
So some media and opposition groups are targeted, but they're targeted one day; the next day or the next week, it may be somebody else who is targeted. The former Reform Party, who utilized a more systematic use of access requests on certain subjects, was one access user group that was followed and targeted.
The problem becomes even more pronounced when citizens put in privacy requests along with access requests, and their identities, even their motives, are challenged. This, from experience, includes applications made on behalf of Meme breast implant victims, fired government scientists speaking out on safety concerns, and attempts by an individual such as Maher Arar to seek records that would help clear his reputation.
Yet another level of monitoring concerns me that goes beyond just tracking: categorizing or channelling access responses. That's when access users are profiled. I have just discovered that I was subject to this treatment. My name is mentioned, so I guess it's okay.
On October 5, 2006, after a long-standing complaint to the Information Commissioner, I received from Canada Border Services a memorandum, previously totally secret, dated January 27, 2004. It had the agency's president's name on it. The subject was access requests, including mine on the controversial advance passenger information and passenger name record systems that track airline passengers—they're tied in with surveillance systems in the United States. The memo was drafted for the then public safety minister, Anne McLellan, but CBSA officials, in the October 5, 2006, letter to me, say the memo in question was never conveyed to the minister or her office, at least in written form.
My name was brought up in that memo, being criticized as one who had applied for data on the secretive air risk scoring system. Mention is made that theToronto Star had made use of some of the data that CBSA had released to me to date on the subject, but the customs intelligence people preparing the January 27, 2004, ministerial memo then brought up my name again in a totally unrelated context, as one who was filing access requests for Maher Arar and Monia Mazigh, who as we now know were both on CBSA's lookout watch list, along with their very young children.
This is unacceptable. Matching up my background data and work on separate access requests should not be used to create a profile and discuss my access usage or that of other requesters. I do not consider this type of data being prepared and shared internally, or potentially going to a minister, a positive part of sharing within the spirit of the Access to Information Act.
I still have other access requests about the lookout watch system and advance air passenger database system at CBSA. They remain unanswered for many months.
Another disturbing development is even more intensive weekly review of requests by senior officials over many months. This was the case in the aftermath of the sponsorship scandal and during the Gomery inquiry. Records I obtained revealed that senior weekly meetings were held at Government Services and Public Works Canada to discuss handling sponsorship developments, including access use by me and others.
Senior ADM and interdepartmental meetings also took place regularly on the Arar file once the O'Connor inquiry was called. They had discussions on how to handle information, including coordinating responses to me as the individual applying, under both the access and privacy acts, for Mr. Arar and Ms. Mazigh. This is of concern to those I've talked to about this, as well as to me, as those applications contained sensitive personal and inaccurate information that was wrongly shared.